


and though i'm not a great romancer

by notanescalator



Category: The Boys in the Band (1970), The Boys in the Band (2020), The Boys in the Band - Crowley (Broadway 2018)
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, LGBT slurs used by LGBT folks, M/M, single reference to homophobic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26738374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notanescalator/pseuds/notanescalator
Summary: Michael’s hands were shaking as they clasped the receiver, and he closed his eyes, swallowing around what felt like a golf ball in his throat. He felt like he was about to come out, all over again.Taking a deep breath, he yanked the phone to his ear, dialling the number in drowsy, halting twirls of his finger. As he reached the last digit, his hand stayed for a second and then slid to his lap. It was ringing.“One point,” Bernard whispered, who had been watching him dial.
Relationships: Michael/Donald, Michael/Harold
Comments: 13
Kudos: 101





	and though i'm not a great romancer

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago based on an idea that wouldn't leave me alone. This is written from the 1970 version of The Boys in the Band, but I think it still works just fine for the Broadway revival version. I didn't think there would be an audience for it, but since the new one got released I thought, what the hell.
> 
> Edit: just goes to show how long I've been working on this because I forgot I tweaked so many time periods and had to correct them lmao. Merde.

It was a series of things, vignettes, that came to Michael when he tried to make sense of how everything happened. The revelation. It came all jumbled up like flashes from a non-linear play, or some experimental film. It was hard to say what constituted “the beginning”.

It was a week after Harold's birthday party, and Donald had asked: “Do you agree with what Harold said?”  
  
At the name, Michael felt his hand seem to ache for a glass of gin. Instead, he picked at the cuffs of his shirt, arranging them over the sleeves of the sweater just so. “So melodramatic. Offering up a sentence like that out of context. About what?”  
  
He heard a brief flurry of movement, anxious. Clearly, Donald was toying with himself whether to continue.  
  
“ About your having never loved anyone.”  
  
Michael’s fingers stilled and his body pulled taut. There was a constricting, acidic feeling winding its way up his throat. He thought for a second he might vomit, or cry. Or both (what a lovely image). His gaze wheeled to the liquor cabinet, the one he knew Donald kept tabs on. Somehow.  
  
 _Does he sneak down each night and measure the levels?  
  
_ Michael’s voice came out steadier than he hoped it would. “Why shouldn’t I? We all know I’m _faaar_ too self-involved to love anybody else.”  
  
He didn’t have to turn to know Donald would roll his eyes. Michael started walking for the kitchen, hoping he could invent something to do once he got there, or else walk right into the refrigerator. This conversation couldn’t happen. Not sober, certainly. And not drunk if he didn’t want a fight with Donald, which is exactly what would happen. Who knows what he’d say, and have to face The Icks alone.  
  
  
\---

It was a few months later and Bernard was in Michael's apartment.

They hadn't seen each other - spoken to each other, even – since the party. In fact, occupied by sulking, Michael hadn't really seen anyone but Donald, and the familiar faces at the deli and the department store. He knew he deserved retribution, but in the meantime he had left that to God and the vicious interior of his own head.

Initially there had been restrained but civil conversation, and Michael couldn't recall the moment of impact. All he knew was that they were arguing, suddenly and inevitably.  
  
“ You think just because you hate yourself most of all it gives you freedom to drag us down with you,” Bernard had snapped. “Well it doesn’t. And you know what I think? You can’t stand that you’re a homosexual-”  
  
“ Give the man a medal,” Michael muttered, unable to stop himself.  
  
“ I’m not done talking. You can’t stand that you’re a homosexual, but even knowing what that means for you, you’re also aware that some of us have managed to find something like happiness. People like Larry and Hank.”  
  
Michael scoffed but Bernard went on. “Oh, I don’t mean anything straight people get. But it’s something, Michael. And you’re terrified that even though us _faggots_ can have something like normal, you still can’t get it. You’ve got an attractive, caring man in your life-- do you know how he has the patience? I sure don't. But you’re terrified that you’ll only ever love the one person who’s better at tearing people apart than you are.”  
  
Michael went still, his face slackening. He was drifting outside the lines of his body, struggling to reconnect with his mouth. He vaguely wondered if he was having a stroke.  
  
 _That’s not… I’m not…  
  
_ “ I’m not in love with Harold,” Michael said, but his voice - to his ears - carried nothing. Not conviction, not anger, not even uncertainty. It was as if he was giving his phone number to the bank. “Have you lost your mind?”  
  
Bernard just looked at him for a moment, as if trying to gauge whether Michael was in denial or simply lying. Michael felt peeled back, felt the itch for the burn of alcohol in his throat, coursing down. He lowered his gaze to his knees. Bernard was wrong, Michael thought, he just needed to find the words to explain why.  
  
Incredible. All the words that gushed out when he should keep his mouth shut, and now he hadn't a damn clue what to say.  
  
“ Maybe you know you don’t deserve Donald, either,” Bernard mused, lighting a cigarette that Michael hadn’t seen him produce.  
  
“ I don’t deserve Donald,” Michael agreed, lips still feeling like gauze. It seemed the safer thing to seize upon, and at least that was definitely true.  
  
Bernard raised his eyebrows in something like pleasant surprise. “But it’s not one or the other. I figured you must know that.”  
  
“ I am not in love with Harold,” Michael snapped, a burst of indignation forcing him to meet Bernard’s eyes. But it felt even less true this time around.  
  
“You have a history, you hurt each other the way you can only do when you know someone very well.”

“My mother knows me very well, Bernard. I'm not in love with her.”

Bernard rolled his eyes. “It's what's behind all your paranoid bitching. It's intimacy. The way you look at him.”  
  
His gaze shifted past Michael, and after a moment, Michael twisted to look. For an absurd moment he expected to find Harold there.  
  
But Bernard was staring at the telephone. There was a few long seconds before it sunk in.

“No,” Michael hissed, abruptly, overwhelmingly afraid. “I won’t do penance by lying.”  
  
“You think about what you did to your friend,” Bernard retorted, “to Alan. Maybe he’s homosexual, maybe he isn’t. But you put all your shitty feelings on him, just to try and make him say something you don’t even know was true.”  
  
“This isn’t true either,” Michael insisted, but the panic was audible now. It was pitifully obvious.  
  
“Isn’t it?” Bernard's handsome eyes hardened, flashing with real anger. “And what about what you did to me?”

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was how Michael found himself on the couch, the phone feeling like an explosive in his lap. His hands were shaking as they clasped the receiver, and he closed his eyes, swallowing around what felt like a golf ball in his throat. He felt like he was about to come out, all over again.  
  
Taking a deep breath, he yanked the phone to his ear, dialing the number in drowsy, halting twirls of his finger. As he reached the last digit, his hand stayed for a second and then slid to his lap. It was ringing.  
  
“One point,” Bernard whispered, who had been watching him dial.  
  
It rang and rang. _He might very well not pick up_ , Michael thought, trying to cling onto that hopeful thread as his stomach churned. He thought of Harold locked in his bathroom, or passed out asleep after too much grass. _He might be ou-  
  
_ “Hel _lo_.” The singular voice, both sharp and bored, seemed to curl into Michael’s ear.  
  
Michael glanced involuntarily at Bernard. “Hello, Harold.”  
  
Quietly: “Two points.”  
  
There was a pause from Harold’s end, and for an absurd moment Michael wondered if Harold knew exactly what this phonecall was. “Hello, Michael.” His voice was tinged ever-so-slightly with impatience. Probably because Michael would typically have launched into whatever he was calling for by now, and Harold was waiting to see what mood he was in.  
  
Michael hesitated, and then for Bernard’s benefit said: “Yes, it’s me, Michael.”  
  
Quieter still: “Two more points.”  
  
“I thought we’d established that,” Harold said dryly. “Tell me, when you called me, did you make any plans beyond ‘hello’ or should I hang up now?”  
  
“I was just calling…” Michael trailed off. He had the phone pressed so tightly against his ear that it was beginning to ache. He wanted to say something clever, something hurtful. Steer as far away from the game as possible. But he realized now, with a silent, steady horror, that being as unsettled by this as he was, could only mean one thing. And if it was true, then how could he make himself a hypocrite, on top of everything else?  
  
 _I might be nellie, but I’m no coward._  
  
He realized he hadn’t said anything in at least ten seconds, and charitably, Harold had not pointed this out. Which was just as well, or Michael never would’ve said what he said next.  
  
“...To say that I love you,” he rushed out, and then slammed the phone down with an echoing ring. He held the phone for a few minutes, hands clammy and still shaking, as if he could contain what he'd said between them. He was only vaguely aware of Bernard watching him from the corner of the room, striving to make sense of what had just happened. What he had realized, what he had said, and who he had said it to. He remembered Bernard at Harold’s birthday party, muttering _why did I call?_  
  
Was that going to be him now, but for the rest of his life?  
  
How could he be in love with Harold?  
  
How could he have ever kidded himself that he wasn’t?  
  
 _Why did I call?_  
  
He got up and lurched toward the liquor cabinet, tugging a bottle of scotch out too quickly and letting it shatter on the floor. He looked down at the sparkling mess for a few silent seconds, and then up at Bernard who, since Michael said the incriminating words, had fallen into a pitying silence. “Well, I guess I get the fucking bonus.”  
  
\---

It was 1961, and Michael was still on Venice time.

“Thought you'd gone and joined the Navy.”  
  
The clock in the hall of Harold's apartment told Michael it was a quarter past one in the morning. After landing in New York, he hadn't thought twice about heading for Harold's, luggage and all. Answering the door, Harold had looked tired, irritable, but not surprised. He eyed the bags at Michael's side. “You should've called ahead. We're all booked up for the night.”  
  
Michael rolled his eyes and slipped past him into the apartment. “Did I wake you?” He dumped his luggage by the couch and began to shake out of his coat. The only light seeped out of Harold's bedroom door along the hall, and Michael switched on a lamp so he could root for his toothbrush in the carry-on.  
  
The front door clicked shut. “Does it matter?” _  
  
_Michael turned and studied Harold's face. “Are you upset about something?”  
  
Harold shuffled to the refrigerator, his confident glide conspicuously absent. He tugged something from under a magnet and wielded it. “It's a charming postcard.” He squinted as he read from it, although Michael got the impression he had it memorized. “ _Wish you were here_. It's an odd sentiment.” He held it against his chest. “Seems to me, if you wanted me there, you could've invited me. Or told me you were going.”  
  
Michael sighed and zipped up his carry-on, watching as the teeth came together, carefully not meeting Harold's eye. He tried to tell himself he wasn't guilty, but his voice was low with it when he spoke. “I told you, Harold. Sometimes I just need to be by myself.”  
  
“So spend a week at your place. Or go to Venice if you must, but don't just swan in and out of my apartment with no warning.” Harold smacked the postcard down on the kitchen table, and leaned against the back of the couch beside Michael. The uncovered scars stood out on his face. “You know what happened last week? Emory's friend, George – that one with the freckles - ended up in the emergency room. He tried to pick up this guy at the movie theater. But he was straight, and he had three pals next time George ran into him.”  
  
An involuntary shiver curdled the guilt in Michael's stomach.

“I'll go see him tomorrow,” he muttered, embarrassed.

“You have to stop running, Michael,” Harold said, quiet and lethal. “Sooner or later you'll run out of air.”

Hostility welled up in Michael, acidic and familiar. It felt better than the shame, it made him feel stronger. “If _you_ were coming home to you, perhaps you'd be running too.”

He didn't mean it, he knew distantly. The problem wasn't Harold, wasn't _just_ Harold, so much as what Michael became around him. It was passionate and it was timeless but it was also competitive, and it was fucking exhausting. But the truth of the statement didn't matter – the hit had connected, he could see it in Harold's eyes.

His voice was tired and hurt when he said: “So why are you here, Michael?”

\---  
  
It was 1968 and Bernard had left.

Michael had folded himself small into a chair, eyes trained, but unseeing, on the liquor cabinet. He had stopped hearing Bernard long before the man gave up and went home. At one point, Bernard had said something about cruelty, but it had been marooned from the rest of the sentence by the alarms in Michael's head, the dialogue with the liquor cabinet about how best to medicate this situation.  
  
 _The booze is self-medication for my condition_ , Michael had joked more than once, and always to disapproval.  
  
The bedroom door opened, but it took Michael a while to process the sound, or the sight of Donald emerging from it. As he crossed the balcony, Michael remembered the puddle of broken glass and snapped to action with the dustpan.  
  
When Donald reached the bottom of the staircase, he found Michael crouched there. “It's not what you think,” Michael said flatly, voice almost lost under the scrape and tinkle of glass. “So you can cease emitting waves of disappointment.” He marched to the kitchen and dumped the glass into the trash.  
  
“What do I think?” Donald followed and leaned back against the counter, eyes not quite at full brightness after his nap. He tilted his head the way that he did when attempting to 'casually' gauge Michael's mood. It was frustrating, but the movement also picked out the angles of Donald's face in a way that was painfully flattering. Michael was certain that Donald knew it, and offered it up as a consolation. His beauty as a balm.  
  
It wasn't something Michael could ever see himself admitting to, but often looking at Donald took him straight back to their first meeting in that bar. His eyes had been so vibrant that for a moment, they seemed to burn all the alcohol out of Michael's system. There was always a shocking clarity to his need for Donald.  
  
Michael checked the soles of his shoes for glass fragments. “That I've fallen off the wagon.”  
  
“You assume the worst of people's assumptions,” Donald said, taking one of Michael's hands and checking it for cuts. Michael had a history of mishaps involving glass, but this was not the case now and he drew his hand back to himself impatiently. Donald sighed and grabbed a cleaning rag, stalking back to the cabinet to clean up the Scotch. He scrubbed at the floor in aggressive circles, possibly pretending it was Michael's face. “So are you going to tell me what happened?”  
  
Using his little finger, Michael made a swirl in the chalk dust of the memo board. Then a looping question mark. _  
  
_Donald was sitting back on his heels now, rolling up the rag. The irritation had vacated in favor of concern. “Michael?”  
  
Michael smeared his thumb through the center of the question mark. “Bernard was here. He got angry about... well. Not just about the party.” He folded his arms, thumbs anchoring in the fabric of his sweater. Another unearned gift to himself. “My behavior, in general. Harold's party was just my definitive performance.” He smiled, queasy and mirthless at Donald, who was generous enough to not make any confirmation. But he didn't deny it, either. He simply stood, waiting for Michael to continue. “He said that-- you really didn't hear anything from upstairs?”  
  
Donald shrugged. “Not a word. If I was awake I would've come down.” He tossed the rag through to the kitchen and wiped his hands on his pants.  
  
“That... _game_ I played at Harold's party-- Where are you going?”  
  
“I'm sitting down, Christ! You're making me nervous.” Donald leaned back on the couch and let his legs sprawl, arms cushioning his head. Michael could think of nothing else to say to stall. His eyes went to the liquor cabinet again.  
  
 _One glass. To make it easier._  
  
He shook his head, and gripped the back of the nearest chair. “In summary, he said that one of my many issues was the fact that... That I'm in love with Harold.” Severely reluctant, he raised his gaze to Donald. He thought that he could feel the blood draining out of his own face.  
  
Donald didn't react. He rode out the silence following Michael's words, until: “And?”  
  
Michael reeled, and then, after a few beats, Donald clearly understood that this was supposed to surprise him – and have surprised Michael - and he looked distinctly uncomfortable. He sat up, fidgeted, as if the confession had been his.  
  
“ _And_ ?” Michael croaked, “you mean to say this isn't news to you?”  
  
Donald rested forward, elbows on knees. His fingers spread in the air as if sifting for the right words. “I thought you knew. And the way you talk to him was your way of dealing with it.”  
  
Michael fell into the chair, pushing at his temples with his index fingers. There seemed to be a film of panic separating him from the world. “Dare I ask, did anyone else think this besides you and Bernard? Do you have a weekly club to discuss it? Michael's Problem - one of many.”  
  
He heard Donald's tongue click in exasperation. “I don't know about anybody else.” Michael looked sharply at him. “Not for sure.”  
  
“ _Merde_ ,” Michael spat, and launched out of the chair again, charting the floor in anxious paces.  
  
Donald's eyes were liable to roll into the back of his skull. “Oh, don't be so dramatic, Michael. So Bernard brought it up. I only admitted I knew because _you_ brought it up – no one else would. So what does it matter?”  
  
“Because I called him!”  
  
Donald's mouth parted in shock, and then his expression hardened. “Well, I hate to say it, Michael, but you deserve it after forcing that childish game on everyone in the first place.”  
  
 _I didn't do it to be cruel, Michael._

Later, Donald slipped out to see his shrink and visit the gym, largely unnoticed because Michael had started to dissociate while contemplating dinner. Donald had been gone little more than five minutes, when Michael was shaken from his warring choices by the doorbell. He sighed expansively and made for the door.

“What’d you forget this time?” he asked, jerking it open. Only, instead of seeing Donald, he saw Harold.  
  
Fuck. For about an hour he had actually forgotten. Forgotten the phonecall, and all those revelations, in the most _un_ religious of senses. He tried to gauge Harold’s mood, but he was wearing his shades and his expression was either too blank or Michael was too panicky to read it. He debated the pros and cons of slamming the door in Harold’s face versus inviting him in, but Harold saved him the trouble and drifted wordlessly past him.  
  
Still, Michael stayed at the door for a moment, as if he could force the world to wait until he was ready for this.  
  
“It's impolite to hang up on someone like that.” Harold's words slotted into place as the lock clicked.  
  
Michael picked at a tear of skin on his left thumb. And when at last he turned away from the door, he still couldn't look at Harold. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked, and then immediately regretted it. A week after Harold's Albee-esque party, his drinking had been checked again. The last four and a half months had actually been his longest stretch of sobriety, but it was a poorly kept secret that Harold tested his resolve.  
  
Besides, it was only 3:30.  
  
“Not for me, thank you,” Harold replied, and Michael could almost see what he wasn't saying suspended above him, like a movie projection. _You go right ahead. If that's what you need.  
  
_ It rankled him. _I was only going to have a glass of water,_ he wanted to snap, but restrained himself. Harold was barely through the fucking door after all. Still, Michael considered just for a moment, as he took a glass from the cabinet, pouring one out of spite. But no. Cutting off your nose and all that. Instead, he settled for running the faucet particularly loudly and almost soaking his sleeve in the process.  
  
He walked back to the living room as slowly as was possible without it being obvious, decided against sitting down and then sat anyway, in the chair opposite the couch. He was in no hurry to move this along, but on deliberating between sitting in silence while Harold stared or letting him get it over with, he decided to speak up.  
  
“So what brings you here, Hally?” he asked, resolutely addressing the water in his glass.  
  
There was a trademark patch of Judgmental Harold Silence, and then Michael heard a set of clicks as he discarded his shades. “I'm not here to play games, Michael.” There was a warning in Harold's tone. “That call last night--”  
  
“Christ, was I drunk last night,” Michael laughed out, but as he accidentally met Harold's eyes, the words hung uncomfortably in the air. He wondered how the hell he had thought that would be a clever thing to say now.  
  
Harold's expression was glacial. “I know what you sound like drunk, Michael, _every_ body does. And That, was not It.” He set his shades delicately in his pocket, as if returning a small objet d'art to its case. “Believe it or not, your drunk self does not have the monopoly on your foolish actions.”  
  
Michael had enough anger buzzing in him now to meet Harold's gaze, lip twisting with barely contained epithets. But the anger worked against itself and rendered him silent. He should've had that damn drink, he thought, and met Harold at the front line.  
  
“Who talked you into it? Was it Bernard, giving you a taste of your own medicine? Originally, I would've said no, but I think he might've been the strongest enemy you made at my party.” His eyes drifted around the room, as if he was looking back with naked eyes and seeing it now. Emory bleeding. Larry and Hank's domestic. Alan huddled in a chair, trapped between fascination and disgust. Bernard's rage at Michael's vile words. The cowboy sulking like some poor sacrificial lamb. And a version of himself, crying at the window.  
  
Harold seeing all.  
  
“Certainly not Donald, he...” Harold cut himself off then, uncharacteristically. Whether from voicing some unpleasant truth or unkindness, Michael wasn't sure, but Harold liked Donald. He demonstrated that as much in his restraint from speaking to Donald as anything he actually said. “No. And Emory wouldn't try it, and Larry and Hank have their own mess. Bernard, then.”  
  
Michael swallowed his water quickly, as if doing so might turn it to gin on the way down his throat. “Bernard.”  
  
“Hmm.” Harold's eyes settled on the phone Michael had used last night, like it was the murder weapon at a crime scene. “Why did you call?”  
  
Michael drained the last of the glass, and glowered. _Now who's playing games?_ “You know the point of the game, Harold. Or would you like me to recount the rules?”  
  
“I didn't ask why you called _me_ , I asked why you called. At all.” There was an anger in his tone that Michael didn't understand, wasn't prepared for. Harold wasn't shouting – he didn't really, ever, he didn't need to – but it was vibrant all the same. Each syllable was a knife-edge.  
  
“I guess you're right. Bernard thought I deserved a taste of my own medicine.” Michael shrugged; he wasn't about to walk Harold through every hard truth of Bernard's from last night.  
  
“Suddenly you, of all people, don't feel like putting up a fight?” Harold's skepticism was palpable, acidic. “After all this time, you say ”  
  
But Michael wasn't listening, instead replaying all that Harold had said. He had been fearing mockery, a rejection – reactions that accompanied this new information. But it seemed as if the information wasn't new to Harold at all.  
  
“Wait, you said…” Michael began, and then faltered, words reluctant to form on his tongue. He sniffed, then sharpened his tone. “You said before that I’d _never_ loved anyone.”  
  
“Contrary to common belief, I am human and capable of human error.” Harold's mouth twisted up at the corner.  
  
Michael caught himself smiling back, tentatively. “But you don't seem surprised by my confession.”  
  
“Confession.” Harold laughed, low and staccato. “What a choice of word.” He sighed, resting his head on the back of the couch. “Then, I suppose any declaration of love a fairy makes is worthy of sinful confession.”  
  
Michael felt stung, but by which part, he wasn't sure. Acidly, he noted, “That's not an answer.”  
  
Anything resembling a smile faded from Harold's face. For a few moments, silence pervaded between them. A police siren welled up from the street, mixing with the screech of cars desperate to clear a path.  
  
Finally, Harold spoke again. “Revelations, welcome or unwelcome, are not easily adjusted to.” Michael felt Harold subtly watching him as he rotated his glass between his palms, fixating on the word _unwelcome_ , and wondering if it would be the stepping stone to a rejection. “Being the object of your affection is a heady responsibility.”  
  
Anger reared up once more in Michael, warm and familiar. “Did you come all the way here just to turn me down? That's cold, even for you, Hally.” The wave of viciousness – that knee-jerk response of his to humiliation - carried him to his feet, and he stalked toward the liquor cabinet but didn't open it. Instead, he turned and leaned against it, eyes cutting into Harold as if he could ruin his cool that way. “Who said I offered you anything to turn down?”  
  
Harold stared at him for a moment, and Michael didn't know what to take from it. _Why are you always so goddamn unreadable?_ Sometimes he thought of Harold's face as a Rorschach blot, onto which he couldn't help but project meaning, and then take offense from. It had been the subject of countless fights – Michael seeing pity, or amusement, or disgust, and running with it, leaving Harold exasperated. _You require so little raw matter to construct an argument_ , he once said.  
  
(And, Donald – on one occasion – somewhat sadly: “You know, Michael, improvising conflict may be your strongest skill as a human being?”)  
  
Harold trailed one finger along the arm of the couch, and then stood, walking over to Michael almost to the point of crowding him against the cabinet.  
  
“You misunderstand me, Michael. I say this _because_ I love you.” Harold declared it quietly, but without any apparent effort, and Michael froze. His breath felt like a solid thing in his throat, and he was forced to turn from the X-ray of Harold's gaze.  
  
Then it hit him that Harold must have made peace with this knowledge a long time ago, along with the fact that Michael loved him in return. That's why the phonecall had angered him. Not because Michael's feelings weren't reciprocated, but because they were.  
  
Soon he felt the childish wave of irritation that always followed Harold outsmarting him, beating him to the truth. It felt so stupidly obvious, now they had both said it. His jaw worked both in and against the effort to say something cutting, and Harold continued oblivious. “You and I are both acutely aware that this doesn’t work. I get melancholy and stoned, you get melancholy and drunk and we both set about destroying the other. Then the next day all is forgiven.” He gave a small shrug of the shoulders.  
  
Michael tilted his head, testing Harold with his eyes. “Forgiven?” He didn’t believe Harold was much more immune to his barbs than he was to Harold’s. Harold was just better at pretending than he was.  
  
He felt Harold’s gaze touch every point of his face. “Disregarded, then,” Harold amended, and his eyes were suddenly focused and affectionate in the way that disarmed Michael as much as any of his surgical comments ever did. “But we can’t live like that. Separation is a condition of our allowing the other to exist. We wouldn’t love each other without it.”  
  
Michael scoffed. “You know, I didn't expect you to sweep me into your arms and take me off into the goddamn sunset.”  
  
A strange smile crossed Harold's face. “And that's it, Michael. You told me you loved me out of spite. Or close enough to it. You were ready to go to war over it, before it was even out of your mouth. So... yes. It _was_ easier to say you loved no one, than deal with the consequences of being loved by you any further.” _  
  
_Michael felt sick. _What am I supposed to do with that?_ “Thanks ever so,” he managed, finally.  
  
“More fighting talk.” Harold reached out abruptly and adjusted Michael's collar, and the intimacy of it jolted him. “I'll be clear. I wouldn't give up those years for anyone. _Any_ one. But if they taught me anything it was that, being in love does very little to stop us tearing into each other.”  
  
Michael looked down at the hand at his neck. “Thou and I are too wise to _woo peaceably,_ _”_ he mused. Harold stepped back, moving so swiftly that he almost seemed to have teleported. _  
_  
“Once I walk out that door,” Harold said, lifting his hand in gesture, “we will never speak of this again. A kindness to us both.”  
  
Michael felt the compulsion to argue, but this time without any anger behind it, or hatred. He caught himself, both because Harold was right and because he couldn’t remember the last time he had an unguarded conversation with Harold that didn’t end in curses or tears. That distinction was more important now than it had ever been.  
  
“In that case…” He started, looking from Harold, to the door, to Harold again and then walking to him. Before he could change his mind, he clasped the side of Harold’s neck, thumb against his cheek, and kissed him. His mouth tasted faintly of something medicinal, and something else warm and sour. Tea, most likely. The cinnamon, apple and cloves black tea that had always been in Harold’s kitchen cabinet.

He broke the kiss, but didn’t step back any further than was necessary to see all of Harold’s face. His cheek had been cool against Michael’s thumb, but it warmed now and Michael could feel scars knitting together beneath the makeup. Harold’s eyes were concentrated but unguarded, and Michael could pick out the regret, and the want, not hidden deep enough.  
  
“Come upstairs,” Michael said, and he let a little challenge seep into his voice, his eyes sparking. Daring Harold to say no. Telling himself it wouldn’t hurt so terribly much if he did.  
  
Harold placed a hand against Michael’s collar, one finger crossing onto the skin of his neck, and raised his eyebrows just slightly. “For old time’s sake?” His tone mocked the romanticism of the idea just a little, but before Michael could respond, Harold stepped away and began climbing the staircase. As he reached the balcony, he looked down at Michael, who felt curiously unable to move, until Harold said: “Well?”  
  
\---

It was 1959 and Michael was lying in bed with the sheets pulled up to his bare hips, hearing Harold rattle around the small kitchen.

Michael could picture him moving among the overhanging plants and herbs like some finicky creature in a jungle. Harold had an oddly graceful way of interacting with the apartment as, although it couldn’t be called tidy, he knew exactly where everything was, and so it gave the illusion of a system.  
  
There were no mirrors in the bedroom. Harold permitted only one in the bathroom, so he could prepare himself for the assail of his reflection in advance. Little neuroses. Instead, Michael gaze wandered over shelves of books, minor ice-skating trophies and the knick-knacks Harold had enough patience with to keep. Michael stretched as Harold came in, dressing gown billowing around his knees as he sat on the bed.  
  
“Tea,” was all he said, handing a steaming turquoise mug to Michael, and then: “Whom are you posing for?”  
  
Michael ignored him and sniffed at the cup skeptically. “You know I’m not much for tea.”  
  
“I am desperately trying to impart some culture on you. Your liver will thank me.” _  
  
_Michael took a mouthful as a compromise - scalding his tongue - and then set the cup on the nightstand. “That’s a bold claim from someone who keeps enough grass in the oregano jar to sedate Utah.”  
  
“They could do with a good party.”  
  
Michael smiled to himself and Harold shuffled into bed next to him. “Frozen fruit indeed,” Michael hissed, “your goddamn feet are like ice.”  
  
“You can take the girl out of the ice rink…”  
  
There was a few moments where Harold simply sipped his tea, and Michael leaned against his shoulder, eyes drifting to the stumpy yahrzeit on the highest shelf in the room. A few days ago had been the anniversary of Harold’s father’s death, and though he borderline disowned Harold when he came out, Harold always lit the candle for him. Michael never questioned it - it was one of the very few things that he placed behind a line, even when stinking drunk - but he supposed it was a sort of penance on Harold’s part. Penance for being inconsiderate enough to be a homosexual son.  
  
“Speaking of oregano,” Harold murmured, and Michael raised an eyebrow at him. “My mother is coming over for a few days, so you’ll have to seek other entertainment.”  
  
Michael grimaced. “Gladly.” He understood well; although Martha was well aware that her son was gay, the Heterosexuals got nervous when you actually paraded your lover in front of them (Michael’s own mother had always got twitchy when he so much as smiled at another man). Besides, he hated Harold's mother. Harold got his aloofness from his father, but his cruel tongue was all Martha.

“What do you do when I'm not around?” Harold asked, eyes on the opposite wall. “Besides drink and pray?”

“Oh, ha.” Michael huffed and glanced at Harold's neck, resisting the urge to brush it affectionately. He always tried to resist it, the little romantic touches, although he didn't quite know why. One night stands often showed him more tenderness than he did even his most frequent lovers. “I might look into a flight to Paris. I haven't been to France since graduation.”

There was a weighty silence, in which Harold took another sip of his drink, and then he said: “I'd rather like to see Paris again.”

On paper, it would be an innocuous statement, but Michael read the meaning behind it. He didn't typically travel with others; sure, he met a lot of guys abroad and they discarded each other very quickly, but he preferred to move around unattached. He liked to let impulse take him, and friends or lovers often interfered with that.

But there was a tentative warmth in his chest when he said: “Just so long as I get the window seat.”

\---  
  
It was 1968 and Michael was lying on his side, one arm slotted beneath the pillows as he watched Harold get dressed.

The wall was not quite back up yet, and Harold’s shoulders were unusually relaxed. Sunset lashed the room in orange and pink strokes, and Michael distantly realized that Donald might be home soon. It all hinged on how long he spent at the gym, and while Michael hadn’t planned on hiding this from Donald, he didn’t exactly want him to walk in on them.  
  
Still, in the current moment he felt something he hadn’t in an incredibly long time - a simple desire for Harold to stay.  
  
As if in answer, Harold turned at the waist and surveyed Michael calmly, and in a strange way he felt all the years they’d known each other laid out between them. In that moment they seemed understood, their most vitriolic arguments trivialized, and Michael felt a weird sense of redemption he had never quite achieved in church. Then somewhere in his neighbor’s place, a door slammed, and the spell was broken.  
  
Reluctantly, he sat up with the intention to find his pants. “I’ll see you out.”  
  
“ No.” Michael blinked at Harold, who placed a hand on Michael’s chest and pushed him back down onto the bed. “No awkward goodbyes. No shy lovers’ send off.” Michael stared at him for a moment and then sighed, in frustration at Harold’s calmness, in frustration at himself. Harold’s eyes flicked down to where his hand was still on Michael, and with just-perceptible reluctance, he removed it. He stood, and for a second Michael thought he was going to waltz out just like that, but at the last moment, and with an expression that suggested there was nothing else for it, Harold leaned down and kissed Michael hard on the mouth.  
  
Michael raised a hand instinctively to cup Harold’s face, but stopped just short of it, and curled it into a fist before dropping it to the mattress. Nonetheless, his head lifted in momentary pursuit when Harold moved back. By the time he could focus, Harold had slipped on his shades and was standing upright at the foot of the bed. “I’ll call tomorrow.” His voice was nonchalant, although not quite as casual it would normally be. And before Michael could say a word, he turned on his heel and left the room.  
  
Michael lay back in the darkening room and listened to Harold’s footsteps on the stairs, then a few moments of silence passed before he finally heard the front door open and close. He stared up at the ceiling, unblinking, until his eyes burned, and then covered his face with his hands.  
  
By the time Donald got home, Michael had changed the sheets and showered. It wasn’t guilt so much - although there was that - it just seemed like the proper thing to do. His hair was still damp when he met Donald at the foot of the stairs, sweat from his workout making a sheen on his skin, his shirt translucent against his stomach and back.  
  
“How's the prick?” Michael greeted.  
  
Donald huffed and started climbing the stairs. “His name is Dr. Fisher and I stopped seeing him after you turned me against him.”  
  
Michael found himself glancing around in search of something unspecific, as if the room could tell Donald what had happened before he could. “I'm still not certain it was your mind he was so focused on. All those out-of-hours “sessions”.” He dropped his voice suggestively, and got a sweaty shirt dropped on his head for his trouble. He made a noise of disgust and flung it into the kitchen.  
  
“The guy I'm seeing now is _understanding._ ” Donald pronounced that last word with derisive imitation, like a grief counselor. He rested both elbows on the balcony. “Understanding to cover up how much he wants me to go to conversion therapy.”  
  
Michael snapped his head up in alarm, but Donald shrugged and ducked into the bedroom. There was a bad taste in Michael's mouth, and he couldn't tell Donald about Harold when he was in one of his post-analysis blue funks. “You realize,” Michael called to the bedroom door, “that if you just used the gym you could shower there and save stinking up my apartment.”  
  
“You don't make eye contact with the showers at my gym. I'd get cleaner at the baths.” The end of Donald's sentence was fractured by the hiss of the water, and Michael found himself shuffling around the living room, hand awkwardly reaching out to coast the edges of the furniture.  
  
He sat in the same chair he had when Harold came over, folded his arms across his chest like a straitjacket and frowned at the spot where Harold had sat, the phone, and then the couch again, in rotation. He didn't move until Donald returned, wearing only slacks, top button forgotten, and working water out of his hair with a towel. If he ran out of anything else, it seemed to Michael that he had an endless supply of beige slacks produced from unknown places in the apartment, and it followed no pattern with the laundry.  
  
Michael sort of hummed as Donald irritably recounted today's session, not finding the energy for his own caustic observations. Eventually, Donald stopped to fill a glass from the kitchen faucet, and appeared to notice his silence.

“You have worse luck with analysts than Emory does with tricks,” Michael said finally, eyeing the drops of water that Donald had scattered on the kitchen floor.  
  
Donald rolled his eyes and dropped the towel from his hair, using his foot to mop the water with it.  
  
“How civilized you are,” Michael noted, curtly.  
  
Donald balled up the towel. “This from the man who leaves cashmere sweaters on the bathroom floor. Oh, _vicu_ _ñ_ _a_.”  
  
“Fuck you.” Michael watched the towel join Donald's shirt in the corner of the room. “Maybe you should try my analyst. He's partial to neither viral plague, or torture.”  
  
“Nor. Isn't that some sort of conflict of interest? Or ethics?” Donald turned to fill the glass again. “Well?”  
  
Michael narrowed his eyes. “Well, what?”  
  
Donald laughed, in that way of his that suggested he was too tired to do it properly. “You tell me. You keep looking at me like I’m about to burst into flame.”  
  
The pipes squeaked as the water stopped, and Michael fidgeted. “Oh.” He picked momentarily at the same patch of skin as earlier, and then the action reminded him of Harold, prompting him to stop. “Harold came by.”  
  
Donald stilled for one second, then another, before he turned and leaned back against the counter, raising the glass to his lips. “Oh?”  
  
“We slept together,” Michael forced out, and Donald almost winced.  
  
His fingers tightened noticeably around the glass, and he clutched it against his chest, gaze drifting to and from Michael's face. “I didn’t need to know that.”  
  
“You'd want me to be like Larry?” He wondered if Donald would notice the hint of jealousy when he said the name, hoped he wouldn't, hypocritical as it was. “Keep it a secret until you ask? That may be his idea of kindness but it's not mine.”  
  
“That doesn't surprise me.” Michael was about to object, but Donald continued: “And I wouldn't have asked.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Donald met his eyes then, in a way that said, _isn't it obvious?_ A drop of water rolled from his neck down to his shoulder. “I never ask about you and Harold. It's an unwritten rule of mine.”  
  
Michael snorted. “It hasn't always been.” He picked up the shirt and towel and dumped them in the laundry basket, then – unsatisfied with standing still - went to open the doors to the terrace. A fall breeze hit him in the face, carrying the scent of gasoline from the street, and cooking oil from the apartment below. He walked to the edge and closed his eyes, trying to imagine himself – as he sometimes did – standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean, separate from all. It worked better than his analyst's breathing exercises, at least. “Or did you forget?”  
  
“I wished I hadn't asked that. But you think about saying something enough, it comes out.” When Michael turned, Donald was looking up at the door of the bedroom, and he wondered if it was involuntary or if Donald was picturing something.  
  
“Evidently.”  
  
Donald was silent for a few moments, and then noticed Michael watching him and came outside, expression sheepish. “Anyway, it's not as if you owe me anything.”  
  
There was a coldness or, rather, a distance to his tone, and Michael frowned. “What do you mean by that?”  
  
Donald rubbed his arms at the chill, but didn't go back inside. “I mean, there's nothing exclusive about our arrangement. You haven't promised me anything, so there's nothing to feel guilty for.” He picked up a curled leaf that was lying on the floor, and then glanced around, apparently trying to figure out where it had come from.  
  
Michael almost wanted to say, _I don't feel guilty_ , out of hard-wired compulsion to be contrary. But he did feel guilty, and somehow he wanted Donald to know that. Besides, regardless of what Donald said, there was little conviction in it. To him, Michael had betrayed something, even if he couldn't put a name to what.  
  
Somewhere below, a window opened and music rolled out onto the air.  
  
 _“--_ _on me baby, I want you to be all mine. I just get so blue.”  
  
_ “Just because you don't promise something explicitly, doesn't mean nothing is expected.”  
  
Surprise caught Donald in a wave, and his mouth twitched into something like a smile, about to say something. Then the smile faded and he seemed to change his mind, reel the words back from his tongue. Instead, he said: “So, do you need me to leave?”  
  
Michael jolted as if he'd accidentally burned himself. “What?”  
  
“I'll be honest, I don't see you moving Harold in here any time soon but, now that you know this... Maybe you want to be alone? Or put this--” Donald gestured between them, “--arrangement on hold?” He found Michael's gaze slowly, and tried to smile, politely. Diplomatically. “I have other things I can-”  
  
“I don't want you to leave,” Michael interrupted, with a violent certainty. The idea had gone from simply unthought of to completely abhorrent. One thing was for sure, he couldn't cope without Donald. Donald was grounding and clear. Since he had started coming round more frequently, Michael thought he saw a possibility of what Bernard had talked about. Maybe happiness was a strong word for it, but something easier, something that kept that self-hatred at bay... it didn't seem quite so improbable. “I want things to go on as they have been.”  
  
Donald sighed and nodded, removing his gaze, and Michael got the impression he hadn't said quite the right thing. But when Donald looked at him again he seemed relieved. A smile passed between them, and then Michael felt oddly self-conscious.  
  
“Anyway, will you come inside before you catch your death?” He passed by Donald into the apartment, and went to the kitchen to check what he needed from the grocery store tomorrow. When glancing up at the chalk memo board to see if there was anything written, he found Donald watching him from the doorway. His eyes were gentle but narrowed, trying to gauge something, his arms framed the space. “What?” Michael asked, softly.  
  
Donald took two purposeful strides, gaze sliding over Michael's face, and suddenly his mouth was on Michael's. It was tentative at first, as it often was, an unspoken inquiry, but then Michael parted his lips – abruptly eager for the taste of him - and Donald pushed forward until Michael was pressed against the refrigerator. He ran his hands up Donald's bare sides and against the skin of his back, as if he was molding the shape of him.  
  
Donald broke the kiss to gasp, but he didn't pull away, and his breath skimmed hot over Michael's jaw. Need was winding its way through Michael's body, and he was suddenly very aware of Donald standing between his thighs. He brought his hands to Donald's chest, brushing over nipples and sampling the pulse of his heartbeat in his fingers, before moving up to his neck and pulling Donald back into the kiss with a possessiveness that surprised him. Donald's hands were insistent as they charted Michael's thighs, his hips, and pushed up his shirt to thumb at the skin of his abdomen.  
  
Something fell from the top of the refrigerator and clattered on the floor. It was Michael who broke the kiss this time and Donald, unfazed, moved his mouth to Michael's neck. “We should take this elsewhere. I'm not – _ah_ – I'm not having you ruin my kitchen. Again.” A graze of teeth against his skin made his hips jolt, and then Donald dropped his chin despairingly onto Michael's shoulder. There was a slight vibration as he chuckled.  
  
“You know, I just showered,” he muttered, stroking Michael's hip absent-mindedly.  
  
“Well, you should've thought of that.” Michael grinned and kissed the nape of Donald's neck, causing Donald to kiss him so deeply and urgently that Michael almost said _fuck it_ and let Donald have him right there. But no, kitchen-floor sex was not all it was cracked up to be and he was getting too old for that sort of thing. He managed to break the kiss and say: “Bedroom, Donald.”  
  


  
Michael looked at the sharp line of Donald's shoulder, picked out by the diluted city light beyond the drapes. He skimmed it with a finger, hardly aware he was doing it, chasing the angle like a raindrop on a window. There were freckles beneath his finger, though he couldn't see in the darkness. He realized how well he knew Donald's body by now - not just how to please it. He could map it in his head like a house he'd lived in for years, from the tiny scar on Donald's hip to the way his eyes looked when he was disappointed in him.  
  
“Why do you stay?” Michael asked suddenly, and his voice was dry and unsteady to his ears. Silence seemed to ring in the room, and for an awful moment he thought Donald hadn't heard. He wasn't asleep - Michael could tell by his breathing – but he didn't think he had the courage to ask again.

Then Donald spoke, the edges of his words blurred by the pillow. “Your shower has better pressure than mine.”  
  
Michael glared at Donald's back. “Ha ha.”

Donald turned over to face him, and there was a gentle smile on his face. His hand rested on the pillow an inch from Michael's, and his gaze settled on them as he considered. “You're a force of nature,” he said finally, affection and amusement softening his voice. “You have a sort of... clarity. You make me laugh. And when you're not in a mood you're actually sweet.”  
  
Caveat or not, Michael couldn't help but smile. He never really flattered himself that someone would call him sweet, but Donald made it sound reasonable.  
  
Donald looked right at him then, as if something came into focus. “I prefer being here to anywhere else.” His inflection made it clear that _here_ meant with Michael, not the apartment.  
  
“I want you to stay,” Michael whispered, the words pulling slowly off his tongue.  
  
Donald's laugh was soft and tired. “I'm not going anywhere.”  
  
“No, that's not what I mean, I...” And thank God it was just the two of them and the room was dark, because Michael sounded so pathetic to his own ears. “Move in. Properly.”  
  
Donald weighed the words, and Michael could feel his uncertainty. Although, at first, he wasn't sure whether it was uncertainty about agreeing, or if he didn't think Michael was being serious. “Is that what you want?”  
  
“I'm asking, aren't I?”  
  
Donald met his eyes through the darkness for a few beats, carrying out the silence, and then sighed. Michael felt a sick tug in his stomach about what was to come, and braced himself for a No. In advance, he tried to drum up something witty and careless to say to cover up the disappointment, but every line he sketched in his head seemed childish.  
  
“I'm sorry, Michael, but I have to ask this for my sake. Is this because of today, because of how things went with Harold?”  
  
He tried to ignore the graze to his pride, then. Between his vulnerability to Harold, and Donald questioning his sincerity, he felt that knee-jerk anger threaten to cut his tongue.  
  
 _Being the object of your affection is a heady responsibility.  
  
_ Michael seized his lower lip in his teeth. _No,_ he told himself, _if Donald moves in with me, he's crazy enough. To do it without insurance would be worth of a padded cell.  
  
_ “Yes,” he answered, finally, “but not in the way you think. Harold was right-” and Michael ignored Donald's eyebrows like a bowstring being tugged “-he and I are not meant to be lovers. And with everything out in the open, I actually want to... at least _try_ to move forward. Focus on what's best for me, what I want.”  
  
Michael reached over and covered Donald's hand with his. He couldn't say he loved Donald yet, he wasn't even sure if it was true right now. His head was still swimming slightly, and he was only just granting himself the freedom to focus on Donald and himself. But he needed something healthier, to stop wallowing in self-pity and excuses not to be happy. And Donald actually made him happy.  
  
“So, if you want it too, then I guess I'll just have to make more closet space.” He managed a light tone then, but fear was still bouncing off his ribs.  
  
Donald chuckled and Michael seemed to feel it inside him, easing his muscles. _I love his laugh_ , he realized. He could allow himself that knowledge, at least. “Inviting your lover to move in with the promise of closet space. There's a contradiction in terms.” Michael laughed then, echoing suddenly in the room, feeling a sort of premature relief.  
  
“It's what I want,” Donald said, at last.  
  
\---

It was 1956 and December, but the house felt almost tropical.

There were just too many bodies packed into the Hoboken apartment, heated up by lust and booze. And there was a whirling fog of smoke in the air that gave it the atmosphere of a basement bar. The music was gratingly loud, jumbling all the dialogue together so that it became a collective roar.  
  
The brunette med school student – now necking on the staircase with some muscular abomination – had apparently enjoyed Michael's company up until his third drink. But then, he had that effect on people.  
  
He could try his luck with somebody else, but he was feeling curiously off about the whole thing. And the long drive down in a jolting car, plus the liquor on an empty stomach, _plus_ the suffocating room was making nausea creep up his throat. He set down his empty glass and pushed his way outside into the frost-ravaged yard. The door swung shut behind him and the blare of the party was suddenly switched off.  
  
The winter breeze cut at his face and exposed forearms but, slowly, it helped, and he closed his eyes, taking deep lungfuls until his stomach settled. His head was something fuzzy filled with sharp corners, but he was no longer on the verge of puking, and he stared across the distant glassy strip of the Hudson to where Manhattan glimmered. He wanted to be over there, suddenly. Not actually in New York – there was little difference between these clandestine parties in each state, as far as he was concerned – but somewhere in between, hovering over the water. Or in it, perhaps.  
  
Michael hugged his arms. What the fuck was the point in getting the anxiety when he was still drunk?  
  
Suddenly, he heard the tick of a cigarette being lit, a tang of smoke making his nose tingle. He looked to his left. To his alarm, there was another young man standing there, and since Michael was in front of the only door, he must have been there the whole time. It irked him slightly, being intruded upon in his self-pity.  
  
There was something odd about him. Michael couldn't see much of his features in the low light, mostly a silhouette – he was slender and tall, hair dark and curly – but there was a curious stillness to him.  
  
“It's impolite to stare.” He spoke suddenly, without moving, so that the words seemed to float out of nowhere. He turned his head suddenly, and even though his face was pooled in darkness, Michael felt the incision of his gaze.  
  
Michael dropped his arms to his sides. “I didn't know anyone else was out here,” he admitted.  
  
He looked at Michael in contemplative silence for a moment, and then moved smoothly toward him, offering a cigarette with a flourish. Michael looked from his eyes, the darkness wide in them, and then to the cigarette before taking it. “Many thanks.”  
  
No sooner than he had placed it between his lips, the stranger bent forward to light it. The flame illuminated his face briefly – enough for him to process piercing dark eyes and slightly made-up skin. Covering acne, perhaps. It could often feel intimate, Michael knew, to have your cigarette lit by someone else or vice versa, but he hadn't expected to feel it so keenly with this stranger.  
  
He leaned back and exhaled, the eye contact yet to break.  
  
His companion took a drag and smiled slightly. “Nifty party, isn't it?”  
  
“Preferable only to a root canal,” Michael said, picking up on the sarcasm. It earned him a laugh, and his mood warmed slightly. “I'm Michael, by the way.”  
  
An appraising glance, and then: “Harold.”  
  



End file.
